America`s Best floods South Florida mailboxes each week with fliers showing missing children on one side and offering prices as low as $5.95 per room for carpet cleaning on the other.

But in affidavits included in the suit filed in Broward County Circuit Court, 11 people say they were victims of America`s Best questionable sales practices. Some say they were swindled out of hundreds -- even thousands -- of dollars.

``Those are people we feel should be reimbursed,`` said Jody Collins, the assistant attorney general on the case.

One of those is Grace Stewart, a Boynton Beach resident who called America`s Best to clean her carpet for the advertised price of $29.95.

The cleaning crew that arrived at her house insisted the job would cost $400. Stewart refused to pay the higher price and had to threaten to call the police before the men would leave.

Collins said a court hearing will be held the week of Feb. 25 to get America`s Best to immediately stop what the attorney general sees as misleading advertising and sales tactics in which they refuse to sell the product or service offered.

The attorney general`s office will then try to prove its case in court and is seeking up to $5,000 for each violation and reimbursement for those who filed affidavits.

Neither the owner of America`s Best, Eugene Frank Goodrich, nor his attorney returned calls to comment on the lawsuit.

``It`s about time,`` was the first remark of Larry Kaplan, assistant director of the Broward County Consumer Affairs Office, upon hearing of the lawsuit.

Kaplan said his office, as well as the Palm Beach County Consumer Affairs Office and the Better Business Bureau, turned over the numerous complaints they had received about America`s Best.

As of last June, 34 complaints had been filed against the company over three years in the consumer affairs offices.

Kaplan said there have been more complaints since June, but he did not know how many.

In some complaints, the price quoted over the phone or in the ad was not what was charged. In other cases, the consumers were pressured into more expensive cleaning methods.

But ``on occasion (America`s Best) would take care of a complaint,`` Kaplan said.

For example, America`s Best charged Joyce Mathieu $2,400 last March to repair a small area of water damage in her Boca Raton home. Her insurance company said it should have cost $400.

Mathieu`s persistence and the efforts of the Palm Beach County Consumer Affairs Office paid off in September with a $1,860 refund from America`s Best.

``I`m just an old lady that got taken,`` Mathieu said. She said she was very pleased to have the check.